NYU’s competitive success proved vital for the Garden, whose promoters remained primarily interested in commercial success. The promoters structured Garden basketball as spectator-centered rather than player-centered. Promoters used glass backboards so that no fans would have their views blocked, but these proved to be a “handicap to the visitors” accustomed to solid wood backboards.[1] The court brought additional complaints. The charity events previously held at the Garden had a canvas floor that “frequently sagged, tripped players, interfered with their dribbling and disrupted passing.” In contrast, regular double-headers used a “floor board that will afford all the security of a college gymnasium.”[2] Some visiting teams complained that the Garden court did not meet regulation requirements for length since it: “is the maximum width, 50 feet, and is 84 feet long, which is halfway between the minimum and maximum for length.” Defenders of the Garden court explained “there is no ‘regulation’ size for the basketball floor,” and declared: “probably the complainants would have found everything satisfactory at the Garden if they hadn’t happened to run into N.Y.U. under that roof.”[3]
NYU became the first school to achieve national recognition from New York’s “Metropolitan” district. In January 1936, during the second season of Garden double-headers, Newsweek remarked that basketball had relegated boxing to a “minor place” at the Garden and “surpassed football’s attendance figures.”[4] The article featured NYU, which continued its success after finishing undefeated in 1934 and 18-1 in 1935. By mid-January 1936, NYU had an 18-game winning streak and some in the New York press compared it to the greatest teams in history, although Nat Holman declared that the “Wonder Five would have taken them.” NYU won two more games over North Carolina and St. John’s at the Garden before traveling to Washington, D.C., where the “team of one Swede, one Irishman, and eight Jews” lost to Georgetown, 36-34.[5]
The centrality of New York schools at the Garden meant that even after NYU’s loss, ‘Metropolitan’ basketball remained the predominant form of ‘eastern’ basketball. By March, at the end of the 1936 season, LIU had compiled a 30-game winning streak and Time declared that on the “strength of its amazing record,” the school had become “New York City’s basketball favorite.”[6] In 1936, LIU had four Jewish players among the top 16 scorers in the Metropolitan district and Julie Bender became the school’s first All-American player. Two years later, the Garden featured the school on six of its twelve double-headers. LIU’s rapid rise from obscurity to national prominence exemplified how Depression-era schools used basketball for prestige, publicity, and commercial interest. The school also continued the dominance of predominantly Jewish teams at the top of eastern college basketball that had started with the ‘Wonder Five’ and continuing with CCNY and NYU.[7] This succession caused New York to become the undisputed center of Jewish basketball and the prime representative of Jewish champions during an era of anxiety and increasing anti-Semitism.
[1] “College Quintets to Play in Garden,” New York Times, December 5, 1934.
[2] “NYU Meets Notre Dame Five in Feature of College Double Bill at Garden Tonight,” New York Times, December 29, 1934.
[3] John Kieran, “A Few Drops in the Bucket,” New York Times, January 25, 1936.
[4] “Basketball: NYU Quins Make it More Popular than Football,” Newsweek, January 18, 1936. NYU was retroactively awarded the Helms National Championship by the Helms Foundation, which began awarding championships and other awards to college teams in 1936.
[5] “Holman Thinks NYU Beatable," New York Evening Post, January 23, 1936. Quote on loss from “Naismith Week,” Time, February 24, 1936.
[6] “Sport” Time, March 2, 1936. The ‘Metropolitan’ district became a recognizable entity only after the beginning of Garden basketball, although Time Magazine described the district in February 1934. See “Basketball: Midseason,” Time, February 19, 1934. The previous year, Time restricted its attention to the ‘East.’ See “Basketball,” Time, March 13, 1933. Also see Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide, 1933-34 (New York: American Sports Publishing Co., 1934). The issue did not include a listing of a ‘Metropolitan’ league, but rather focused on “Basketball in Eastern Colleges.” For information and a broader history of New York City basketball, see Isaacs, All the Moves, 67-92.
[7] Isaacs, All the Moves, 81-86; Charley Rosen, Scandals of ’51: How the Gamblers Almost Killed College Basketball (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1978); Claire Hare, “How About It?,” New York Evening Post, February 8, 1934; Bjarkman, Hoopla, 37-38. Between 1935-1939, Bee compiled a remarkable record of 149-11 at LIU. Within a three-year period, the school moved from playing obscure and small schools such as Seth Low College and Oglethorpe to nationally recognized teams such as Duquesne.
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